Student Lookout: More baseball woes, tasty tamales and an A+ reboot

Well hey, folks,

I know I’ve been complaining about the Oakland A’s a lot, but something happened this past week that I have been dreading for years: The team announced plans to move forward with purchasing land in Las Vegas, making its long-threatened move all the more likely. This is what happens when you have an owner who doesn’t care about the team and just wants to make money.

If the move does end up happening, I’m not sure what to do. I could look for another team to follow, but more likely than not, I’ll just continue to follow the sport as an orphan fan. If you couldn’t tell, this has been a difficult time.

Anyways, I hope the past week or so has been better for you than it’s been for me! Let’s get right into it.

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Off we go…

Deals Download

• Students (and teachers) get 10% off at Well Within on Thursdays.
• HoM Korean Kitchen offers 15% off for students.
• Seymour Marine Discovery Center offers free admission to UC Santa Cruz students and 25% off for all student tickets.

BEST DEAL OF THE MONTH: Student tickets at Kuumbwa Jazz

Located in downtown Santa Cruz, Kuumbwa Jazz is a nonprofit providing Santa Cruz the full spectrum of jazz music through live performance and education. Check out an upcoming show and take advantage of discounted student tickets.

➤ Want to share these deals with your friends? Have them sign up for Student Lookout texts with this link.

Good Eats

Pedro’s Tamales at Day’s Market ($)

If y’all are ever over in Seabright, stop at Day’s Market for a quick but delicious lunch. Take your pick of chicken tamales with red salsa or green salsa, or you can go with my personal favorite, jalapeño and cheese. This market is right around the corner from the Verve Coffee where I used to work, so these have fed me many, many times while on my shift. Gotta give a shoutout to my man Pedro.

This week, Jessica M. Pasko — one of the great food journalists filling in for Lily Belli while she’s on maternity leave — writes about exciting new local eats and reopenings. Those include a Filipino pop-up on Sunday evenings at 11th Hour Coffee’s After Hours, a Zelda’s comeback in Capitola, and Trout Farm Inn’s comeback next week.

Take this weeks news quiz

Inside Santa Cruz: State gives transit, housing a boost

On Tuesday, the Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District was awarded $40 million from the California State Transportation Agency to stimulate housing and transit projects. This will help Santa Cruz Metro purchase 24 hydrogen-fueled, zero-emission buses, finalize the 120-unit Pacific Station North redevelopment and administer money needed to the 60-unit Watsonville Transit Center project. Santa Cruz Metro plans to begin circulating the 24 buses within the next 18 months, replacing existing buses. Santa Cruz Metro also plans to build a hydrogen fueling station at existing operations on River Street. According to Bonnie Lipscomb, the head of the city’s economic development department, development of the Pacific Station North project will begin in the first quarter of 2024. The money was a part of $690 million awarded to fund 28 transit projects across California.

In compliance with the state’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA), the City of Santa Cruz will have to permit 3,736 new housing units of varying affordability by 2031; this is a threefold increase from the 747 units required in 2015 to 2023. Though having a capacity for 8,727 units, city planning staff predicts Santa Cruz will permit 4,457 units. The plans for downtown expansion is the largest area for these projected units. Along with new units spanning from city corridors — Mission, Ocean, Water and River streets and Soquel Avenue. Mission Street alone is projected to have 869 units, with the city permitting 2,076 total new units across the city corridors by 2031. The city’s planning commission voted 4-0 on sending housing element plans to the city council for final approval before going to the state. The city needs the California Department of Housing and Community Development to approve the plans by the end of 2023.

To read more about these recent developments, check out Christopher Neely’s coverage or subscribe to his weekly newsletter, In the Public Interest, for updates and breaking news in Santa Cruz politics and policy.

Around Town - Events

Here are a few events you should check out:

Food Truck Friday, Friday, 5-8 p.m.

The weather is warming up, and that means it’s the perfect time to take advantage of the long daylight hours and summer sun at Skypark in Scotts Valley for Food Truck Friday. Hang out for a few hours on Friday evening and enjoy live music and a beer and wine garden to boot. Check out the site for a full list of vendors.

Spring plant sale, Saturday, 10 a.m. - 3 p.m., Sunday, 10 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Speaking of warmer weather, any of you planning on adding to your plant collection this spring and summer should head to the Hay Barn for the UCSC Center for Agroecology’s annual plant sale. Find veggies, flowers, herbs and much more. Bring your student ID and get 25% off on all purchases.

Pie for the People, Sunday, 1-3 p.m.

Come out to the Homeless Garden Project’s Natural Bridges Farm for a couple hours of pie-eating and fundraising. Bring friends, family or any other pie lovers in your life, a pie of your choice and $5 or so as a donation toward the Center of Farmworker Families. If you don’t have time to bake a pie, no worries. Bring a little extra money for the donation.

Mic Drop! Open mic featuring Brandon Leake, Sunday, 5:30-8:30 p.m.

The monthly open mic at The 418 Project’s home on River Street is back this Sunday. Stockton’s Brandon Leake, the first poet to compete and to win “America’s Got Talent” (Season 15), will close out the night. If you or any friends would like to perform, get there at 5:20 to sign up. And if you’d just rather watch, you’re in for a special treat. Tickets are priced on a sliding scale from $7 to $20.

➤ Want more? If you’re still looking for great things to do, check out Wallace Baine’s Weekender here.

How I got my job: Tracy Cotten of Mick’s Automotive

Tracy Cotten, owner of Mick’s Automotive.

(Alison Gamel / Lookout Santa Cruz)

Kaya sat down with Tracy Cotten, the owner of Mick’s Automotive in Live Oak. Mick’s is a green auto shop, which means he uses environmentally friendly products and procedures in his day-to-day work.

They talked about what it means to maintain the green status, the industry’s failure in recruiting new technicians, and why there’s no typical day in the shop.

This week, I watched: “Evil Dead Rise” (2023), directed by Lee Cronin

A still from “Evil Dead Rise.”

(Via Mxdwn)

Remakes and reboots usually make my eyes glaze over, as I tend to write most of them off as nothing more than low-effort cash grabs. Well, here’s an exception.

The maniacal, blood-soaked maelstrom that is “Evil Dead Rise” has no business being this good. An instantly wild cold open falls into a lull during the subsequent run-of-the-mill build-up, but once it gets going again, it quickly becomes an incredibly gruesome hourlong onslaught that flies by like 20 minutes. The dashes of classic Evil Dead humor missing from the 2013 entry are extremely welcome, and the gore is fantastic. The amount of cartoonish violence in this thing is absurd, which is exactly how it should be. It’s got scalping, disemboweling, impalement, demonically fused bodies getting shoved into a wood-chipper — you know, the works.

Obviously, the story comes with no big surprises, but if you’re coming to an Evil Dead movie for thematic depth, you’re coming for the wrong reason. Metal as hell and deranged in all the right ways, this is truly one of this year’s must-sees for horror fans. Maybe I just went in with low expectations, but to me, it’s an all-time great reboot. Who knew that the most fun you might have at a theater this year would come in the form of a franchise’s second spinoff? Not me.

Rating: 4.5/5

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Hope you’re all enjoying the beautiful weather of recent weeks. Summer is right around the corner!

Talk to y’all next week.

— Max